also on their knees, kissed him in turn. When they had finished, a velvet cloth, black, with gold or silver embroidery on it, was spread in front of the altar; on this the young man lay down, and a black silk pall was laid over him. lay while mass was celebrated by the abbot.

Thus, under semblance of a state of death, he When this was finished, one of the deacons of the mass approached where the young man lay, and muttered a few words from a book he held in his hand. I understood that the words used were from the Psalms, and were to this effect-Oh thou that sleepest, arise to everlasting life.' The man then rose, was led to the altar, where, I think, he received the sacrament, and then took his place among the Brotherhood. That was the end of the ceremony. The young man was an American; I could not learn his name, but after he became a monk it was to be Jacobus."

"1

Before passing away from the mysterious learning of the East, a few remarks concerning two of the most powerful of the secret societies of the Middle Ages will not be out of place. The symbols, metaphors, and emblems of the Freemasons, have been divided by Dr Armstrong into three different species. First, such as are derived from the various forms of heathenism-the sun, the serpent, light, and darkness; Secondly, such as are derived from the Mason's craft, as the square and compasses; and Thirdly, those which are derived from the Holy Land, the Temple of Solomon, the East, the Ladder of Jacob, etc.

The first two species of symbols-those derived from heathen worship and from the Mason's craft-he finds in the Vehmic Institution, and the third, being "of a crusading character," he considers favours the assumption of a connection between the Freemasons and the Templars. It is further observed by the same writer, that the secret societies borrowed their rites of initiation, their whole apparatus of mystery, from heathen systems; and we are asked to remember that the Holy Vehme was in the height of its power during the fourteenth century, and that it was in that century that the sun of the Templars set so stormily.2

The history of the Knights Templars has been sufficiently alluded to in earlier chapters,3 but the procedure of the Holy Vehme, though lightly touched upon at a previous page, may again be briefly referred to. This is, indeed, in a measure essential, if all the evidence which may assist in guiding us to a rational conclusion, with respect to many obscure points connected with our Masonic ceremonial, is to be spread out before my readers.

It has been well observed, that "in all lodge constituent elements and appointments, the track is broad and direct to a Gothic origin." 5 Now, leaving undecided the question whether this is the result of assimilation or descent, if we follow Sir F. Palgrave, the Vehmic Tribunals can only be considered as the original jurisdictions of the "Old Saxons" which survived the subjugation of their country. "The singular and mystic forms of initiation, the system of

1 In a letter dated Jan. 3, 1884, Mr Simpson informs me: "This is the account from my diary [1870] written on the day of the ceremony." The annexed Plate is from a drawing by Mr Simpson, which appeared in the Illustrated London News, Feb. 26, 1870.

2 The Christian Remembrancer, vol. xiv., 1847, pp. 13-15.

3 Chaps. I., pp. 8, 10; V., p. 245; and XI., pp. 498-504.

5 Fort, The Early History and Antiquities of Freemasonry, p. 183.

4 Chap. V., p. 250.

"Points of identity between lodge operations

and medieval courts are of too frequent occurrence to be merely accidental" (Ibid., p. 272).

6 It may be usefully borne in mind, that the regulations by which the Craft was governed prior to 1723, were termed by the Masons of that era, the "Old Gothic Constitutions." Cf. Chaps. II., p. 103; VII., p. 351; and XV., p. 208.

enigmatical phrases, the use of signs and symbols of recognition, may probably be ascribed to the period when the whole system was united to the worship of the Deities of Vengeance, and when the sentence was pronounced by the Doomsmen, assembled, like the Asi of old, before the altars of Thor or Woden. Of this connection with ancient pagan policy, so clearly to be traced in the Icelandic courts, the English territorial jurisdictions offer some very faint vestiges; but the mystery had long been dispersed, and the whole system passed into the ordinary machinery of the law." 2

1

Charlemagne, according to the traditions of Westphalia, was the founder of the Vehmic Tribunal; and it was supposed that he instituted the court for the purpose of coercing the Saxons, ever ready to relapse into the idolatry from which they had been reclaimed, not by persuasion, but by the sword.3 This opinion, however, in the judgment of Sir F. Palgrave, is not confirmed either by documentary evidence or by contemporary historians, and he adds, “ if we examine the proceedings of the Vehmic Tribunal, we shall see that, in principle, it differs in no essential character from the summary jurisdiction exercised in the townships and hundreds of Anglo-Saxon England."4

The supreme government of the Vehmic Tribunals was vested in the great or general Chapter, before which all the members were liable to account for their acts.5 No rank of life excluded a person from the right of being initiated, and in a Vehmic code discovered at Dortmund, the perusal of which was forbidden to the profane under pain of death, three degrees are mentioned. The procedure at the secret meetings is somewhat obscure. A Friegraff presided, while the court itself was composed of Freischöffen, also termed Scabini or Echevins. The members were of two classes, the uninitiated and initiated (Wissenden or wise men), the latter only, who were admitted under a strict and singular bond of secrecy, being privileged to attend the "Heimliche Acht," or secret tribunal."

At initiation the candidate took a solemn oath to support with his whole powers the Holy Vehme, to conceal its proceedings "from wife and child, father and mother, sister and brother, fire and wind, from all that the sun shines on and the rain wets, and from every being between heaven and earth," and to bring before the tribunal everything within his knowledge that fell under its jurisdiction. He was then initiated into the signs by which the members recognised each other, and was presented with a rope and a knife, upon which were engraved the mystic letters s. S. G. G., whose signification is still involved in doubt, but which are supposed to mean strick, stein, gras, grein.o

8

The ceremonies of the court were of a symbolic character; before the Friegraff stood a

1 E.g., the strange ceremony of the "Gathering of the Ward Staff" in Ongar Hundred, possesses a similarity to the style of the Free Field Court of Corbey. See Palgrave, op. cit., pp. cxliv., clviii.

Palgrave, The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, 1832, Part II., p. clvi. 3 Ibid., p. clv.

Palgrave, loc. cit.

7 Palgrave, op. cit., pp. cxlix., cli.

6 Heckethorn, Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries, vol. i., p. 200.

Heckethorn states that the initials s. s. s. G. G. have been found in Vehmic writings preserved in the archives of Hertfort, in Westphalia, and by some are explained as meaning stock, stein, strick, gras, grein, stick, stone, cord, grass, woe (Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries, vol. i., p. 201).

9 Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edit. For the preliminary procedure at the reception of a candidate, see Chap. V., p. 250.